


that calls darkness light

by stormss



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Coming Out, Declarations Of Love, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 21:09:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20645711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormss/pseuds/stormss
Summary: "I love you," Richie sobs, ten seconds too late.





	that calls darkness light

**Author's Note:**

> despite the depressing summary this is my attempt at a fix-it and it gets happier i swear!! after watching chapter 2 i couldn't get this idea out of my head and despite never writing for this fandom before i just had to get it out so here we are!! 
> 
> the title is from _my body is a cage_ by arcade fire.

Everything happens too fast. 

Richie doesn't even really register what exactly _is _happening — all of a sudden he feels blindfolded, the noise of the fighting around him blurring out and turning into nothing but distant echoes. Bright light warms his face and it's like he can feel the damn clown's claws digging into his brain, turning everything into mush, and rapid images start to flash by: choking on water, a bloody nose, his mother's gravestone, Bev screaming, the joystick and sticky buttons of _Street Fighter_ under his fingers, Stan's eyes rolling fondly at something stupid he said, his own cramped fingers around a pocketknife as he chips away at wood until — finally, _R+E, _as it should be — and he's wrenched out of it all as one final vision taunts him, Eddie's blood staining his clothes, Eddie's face soft around the edges, _Eddie Eddie Eddie _— 

"Rich!" 

The world around him snaps into place like an elastic band, and there's ringing in his left ear, and Eddie's face is bright as he hovers over him. 

Eddie's voice brings him back to reality, grounds him in it, and Richie's still wildly blinking up at him as he starts babbling excitedly, his hands curved gently against Richie's jaw like it's _normal_, and his heart is just hammering away in his chest. He opens his mouth to speak and then it's like every fucking nightmare he's ever had comes true, because Eddie is frozen in time. His eyes are wide and Richie all of a sudden feels blood splattered over his face, _Eddie's _blood, and it just pulls the desperation out of him, his voice sounding strangled as he cries: "Eddie?" 

It's always him, always been him, how the fuck did Richie forget? 

"Richie?" Eddie sounds confused, like he doesn't realize that he's just been stabbed, right through his fucking stomach. There's Bev's scream, just like his vision, and Richie looks down to see Eddie's own hands plastered over his wound, blood seeping through his fingers. "_Rich_." 

He's cut short, blood dripping out of the corner of his mouth. Richie's eyes start burning, his hands shaking as he reaches out for him. The arm, tentacle, claw — whatever — is starting to drag Eddie away from him and he can't watch this happen, let this come true. Thankfully, whatever force out there that still has him in their good graces sends him Mike and Ben, both of them screaming and pulling the clown's attention away, the clawed arm disintegrating as it manifests into a mummy to terrorize his friends. Eddie slumps forward and Richie's breathing hard but he grabs onto him, both of them stumbling back toward the wall. 

He breathes in Eddie's hair, and immediately presses one hand against the wound in his back and the other to his stomach, wincing as Eddie makes a pained noise, tears already threatening to spill. "Fuck, Eds, I don't know what to do." 

Bev's at their side, now, the others making their way over. She has blood staining her jaw and neck and her eyes are wild, and yet she still has that determined look set on her face. 

Everything is happening too _fucking _fast. 

"Please," Richie finds himself whispering, over and over, as Bev helps him apply pressure and Eddie continues to grab at Richie's coat, tugging enough to bring him down closer. Hunched close, Eddie speaks, coughing between words as he explains everything he saw: how it was belief that knocked the clown down a few pegs, how it was all about making the leper feel small that allowed Eddie to come close to killing it. Bev seems to clue in quicker than Richie, who's still just staring at Eddie's face, trying to memorize every small detail, his hands now thoroughly soaked with warm blood. 

"We have to move him," Richie says, once Mike and Ben and Bill have come over to them, panting and completely bewildered at the entire fucking situation. Richie doesn't blame them. "Guys, we have to get him out of here, he's losing too much blood." 

Bev's speaking in a hurried voice, trying to condense everything they'd realized in the last few moments into a simple plan: knock him down, make him small so they could finally kill the motherfucker. They all need to be a part of it, though, and Eddie looks deterred as Richie and Ben help him to his feet. Mike starts them off, and then Bev, and there's screaming and taunts and Richie only barely understands what's happening because even though Eddie's yelling out his own insults, he's still slumped unnaturally against a jagged boulder, his face illuminated in green and blue. The others push It further into the lair, and Richie still has his hands against Eddie's stomach. 

"Go," Eddie whispers, and Richie's already shaking his head in protest. Eddie takes his face between his hands. "_Go, _they need you, Rich." 

Richie licks his lips and nods and presses his hand to Eddie's bandaged cheek, once, before running over to help his friends. In a moment of rage, Richie breaks off the arm that speared through Eddie and throws it to the ground, sort of enjoying the look of pure fear that appears on Its face. Once they've crushed the heart, slime covering their palms, Richie's practically tripping over himself to get back over to Eddie, nearly slipping on the slick rock as he drops in front of Eddie's body. 

The earth is crumbling around him, now, in more ways than one. His breath is caught in his throat as he falls to his knees in front of Eddie, who looks even more pale and bloody and his chest is — it's moving, but barely, and Richie feels the sob rip out of his body. 

"Eddie," he mutters, settling his hand on the back of his neck, bringing him closer. Eddie blinks, slowly, and Richie sniffs. "Hey, hey, Eds, look at me." 

His voice comes out barely above a whisper, and he can feel the others staring. There's Bev's sharp intake of breath and Bill dropping his hand onto Richie's shoulder, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, starting to tug. 

"Richie." Eddie groans, more blood staining his lips. He smiles and it's strained, and Richie inches closer.

"We did it." Richie says, moving his other hand up, gently running his thumb over his cheek. "We killed that bitch hard." 

Eddie coughs, and Richie immediately begins applying pressure to his wound again. But Eddie's still fucking smiling. "Knew you'd do it." 

"You're the reason we figured it out, Eds." Richie's crying, now, unable to help the stream of tears that are just coming out like a goddamn faucet turned on behind his eyes. Eddie's blinking at him until the movement starts to slow, his gaze spacing out a bit, and Richie's heart is in his throat. "_Hey, _look at me. Keep your eyes open. We're going to get you out of here." 

"Richie," it comes out like a gasp, and Eddie's shaking his head at the idea, and Richie clenches his jaw. He starts shaking his head back at him, refusing to accept this ending. Eddie's head starts bobbing and Richie is just waiting for the ground to open up and swallow him whole because he can't fucking watch this happen. He won't. 

"No, come on, I've got you." 

Except he's fucking weak, his limbs giving out on him, and it's like the crying has completely drained him of any upper-body strength. He glances over his shoulder and there's more and more fragmented rock falling around them, and it's now or fucking never. Mike's already moving in, all of them are, and Richie almost just breaks down then and there because of them but they don't have the time. 

"I'll lead us out, okay?" Bev's voice is like an anchor, and once they've all got ahold of Eddie's half-dead body, they start moving quickly out of the cavern. They all follow Bev as she deftly moves around the wreckage, and through the gross water and up through the sewers and the hatch and the fucking house they keep moving, as fast as they can manage, Eddie letting out pained groans and hissed out curses as they move him. The house begins to shake violently, throwing them off balance, and when they lose their grip on Eddie he opens his mouth to speak and demand they leave him behind to save themselves and Richie just — refuses. His hands curl around his legs, Ben already positioned to pick Eddie up by the shoulders, pushing himself over the three of them with his arm lifted over his head to block some of the debris raining down over them.

"No, fuck off, Eds. We're almost home free." 

They lift him on three, despite Eddie's huffs of pain. The sunlight almost looks fake, once they've stepped outside. Most of Eddie's weight falls against Richie once they're on the road, all of them frantic to come up with a plan. Richie finds himself mumbling, "ambulance?" as he pats down his pockets for his phone even though he knows somewhere in the back of his mind that he left it in his car. Bev, ever the quick-thinking one, has already started to make her way to one of the houses down the street to ask for help. He holds Eddie up as Mike strips off his button-down, the cotton fabric more useful than Richie's leather jacket that he thinks he left down in the sewers, and proceeds to tie it tight around Eddie's middle, covering both wounds to at least help with the blood loss. 

Richie notices Eddie's slightly glassed-over look, and his sob catches in his throat, his hands pressed to Eddie's face. There are sirens wailing in the distance, and he can feel his friends staring at him, and Bev comes out of nowhere to help prop Eddie up, her fingers running through his hair in a soothing rhythm. And then, Richie's thoughts interrupted, Bill yells something about seeing the ambulance and he runs to the end of the street, waving wildly, and then there's paramedics with sterile gloves poking and prodding at Eddie and immediately pulling him onto a stretcher, and, and — 

"I love you," Richie sobs, ten seconds too late. The ambulance peels away, sirens flashing bright, and he crumbles to the ground. 

* * *

They arrive at the comically understaffed hospital in the matter of fifteen minutes, thanks to Bill's driving, and at first Richie worries that they'll immediately be turned away because they're all still fucking covered in grime and demon blood and dirt, and Richie's shaking so hard that his teeth are chattering, surely looking insane to the nurse in front of them. But she must sense the desperation leaking off of them, and she only has to glance them over once before she asks: "Friends of Mr. Kaspbrak?"

"Yeah," Ben gets out, the only level-headed one of them all. "Yeah, is he alright?"

"They've taken him into surgery, and it appears as though it could be several hours —" She stops speaking when Richie lets out a small noise, looking up briefly from her file. The corner of her mouth twitches and Richie feels Bev curl her arm around his shoulders, pushing herself up to her tip-toes to do so. "I'll have to ask you all to stay here for now, but once I find out more information I'll let you know." 

The emergency waiting room is, at least, somewhat empty. There's a woman in the corner filling out paperwork, coughing into her arm every few seconds. A few seats away from them sits a young boy, brown curls and wide eyes, cradling a clearly broken arm while his mother yaps into a cellphone. Richie's going to puke. 

"I gotta..." Richie trails off, immediately rushing down the short hallway to the bathroom. He makes it into the first stall he sees and throws up until he's just crying, forehead tipped against his forearm. He shakily gets to his feet and flushes and stumbles toward the sink, where he grips the porcelain until his knuckles turn white, leaning most of his weight onto his arms. He glances up to take in his reflection and he sees dirt and greasy hair stuck to his forehead and his ripped shirt and his cracked glasses and the blood all over him, _Eddie's fucking blood_ and his hands start shaking, his stomach turning a little again. 

He turns the tap and watches the water stream down until it's steaming, and then he scrubs furiously at his hands but moments later his skin is still stained red. 

"Fuck this." Richie mutters. _Fuck it all, _he thinks, as he storms out of the bathroom. His friends all look wrecked, their concerned eyes falling to him once he re-emerges. Richie wordlessly sits down in the empty chair they've left for him, sandwiched between Bev and Mike, and he begins tapping his foot insistently against the tiled floor, eyes focused on the double-doors that leads out to the ICU. When he glances out of the corner of his glasses everything becomes skewed and out-of-focus, a kaleidoscope of fluorescent lights and his own blood-stained hands as they grip onto the armrests. 

Hours pass in a blur. The hacking woman in the corner is ushered away by a new nurse after forty-five minutes; a small family of tourists walk through the door, a small toddler curled against the father's chest, and Richie vaguely picks up on them talking hurriedly with the nurse, something about a high fever and vomiting. Another hour comes and goes and finally the kid with the broken arm emerges with a blue cast, and when Richie stares out the big windows he can see that the sky is now a bruised violet, streaked with dark clouds and a smattering of stars. The automatic doors slide open and Richie feels a hand on his shoulder.

"Richie, honey." 

It's Bev, her hair damp as it curls against her neck, now wearing clean clothes. He doesn't remember her leaving. He blinks and stares up at her, glances behind her and sees Bill, the only one still covered in grime like him, waiting with his keys in his hand. 

"No," Richie finds himself saying, despite some voice deep inside begging him to get cleaned up. But he — what if he leaves and misses out on seeing Eddie and then he takes a turn for the worse? What if he leaves and comes back and finds out that they never had hope of saving him in the first place? Richie's throat is bobbing, and he stares at the very interesting speckling in the tile. 

"It'll take half an hour, Rich," Bev says, and when he won't look up from the floor she drops into a crouch so she can be eye-level with him. "Hey, you'll feel better once you're cleaned up. You can get a coffee, maybe something to eat —" 

"I'm not fucking hungry, Bev, okay?" Richie snaps, a little too much bite in his words, because it draws Ben and Mike's attention away from the magazines they're half-heartedly flipping through. He thinks of how he broke down on the car ride over, and tears burn at his eyes again, the heavy-wet sob settling in his chest once he's swallowed it down. "I'm not gonna break." 

Richie pulls his glasses off and presses the heels of his palms to his closed eyes. She just squeezes his knee, and the others start murmuring around him, and eventually they have Bill leave alone, none of them able to physically move Richie. But then he feels the grime settling over his skin and he thinks of Eddie frowning at him for staying like this, so he roughly clears his throat and pushes himself to his feet and runs after Bill, who's just made it to his car. 

"Wait, Bill!" Richie yells, groaning at the creak of his knees as he comes to a stop at the passenger side of the car. He stops at the door, leaning against it. "Mind giving me a lift?" 

Bill smiles softly at him. "Get in, Trashmouth." 

The ride is quiet as they head to the townhouse, and Richie chews absently on his thumbnail. He can feel that Bill wants to talk to him about his...multiple breakdowns over the last several hours, but he doesn't press him, and he appreciates it. He takes the steps two at a time and briskly and pointedly walks right past Eddie's room, shouldering into his own cramped room. He tries to be as quick as possible, grabbing the first and only other set of clean clothes he can find. Richie moves into the bathroom and just tries to ignore everything but the shower. 

He stands under the hot spray of water, scrubbing desperately at his hair, his arms, every inch of skin until he's pink from the water and as clean as he can get. He tilts his head back and lets the water hit his face, and his stomach pangs with a memory, a flood of them — wrestling Eddie underwater in the quarry, getting splashed in the face, his own heart doing somersaults as Eddie came too close to him after, practically peering into his soul, Richie's cheeks flaming hot. He screws his eyes shut tight and when he opens them he's back in the deadlights, hot flashes of the life he doesn't remember crawling up his spine and all over his skin, settling it aflame. Once more, he blinks as fast as he can, and he's back in the shower, the water starting to cool. 

There's not much he can do to his hair, after, his curls plastered to his head but _clean_. He pulls on a pair of jeans and stares in the mirror, fingers lingering over the fading purple bruise on his ribs, thanks to falling to the ground from ten feet in the air, and he stares at it for a few more seconds before he huffs and accepts the fate of the shirt he's going to have to wear; it's soft and clean, at least, but the tourist shirt that's three sizes too big that he bought as a joke when he'd stopped for gas and a Red Bull on his way into town is just glaringly not his style. Despite it all, he does, admittedly, feel better. 

But fuck, if he couldn't go for a drink right about now. 

(Bill smirks at the shirt when he comes downstairs, and Richie mocks his laughter and flips him off, lovingly, before telling him he was paying for the coffees). 

* * *

He wakes with a start to the clown's taunting voice, the bone-chilling screech shooting ice up his veins. _I know your secret, your dirty little secret. _Richie catches his breath and feels the crick in his neck from sleeping sitting up. The lights are too fucking bright as he glances around him, noticing Ben and Bev with their backs to the wall, Ben's legs kicked out across the floor with Bev sleeping against his shoulder. Mike's on the food run, he thinks, and Bill's got his reading glasses halfway down his nose as he dozes, a book open on his lap with his thumb screwed between the pages to keep his place. _Shall I tell them Richie? _

He grips the armrests tight and takes five deep breaths, some stupid trick his first manager taught him when he got to LA. Five deep breaths in, two long ones out. He does it, again and again, eventually letting it lull him back to sleep.

* * *

"Does anybody else know?" 

Richie shakes his head, passing the cigarette back to Bev. She takes a long drag and turns her head away from him to exhale. 

"You know it doesn't change anything for us." Her voice sounds so sincere he doesn't know if he wants to laugh or cry. "It never would, Rich." 

"My whole fucking life I've been hiding." Richie pinches the bridge of his nose, accepting the last bit of the cigarette and inhaling sharply, smoke curling around his words as he speaks, but his voice still shakes. "My whole life I've loved him, Bev, and I thought he was gone, and I can't —" 

Bev just moves closer and drops her head onto his shoulder, and he turns so he can breathe in her hair. They'd split from the group twenty minutes ago, Bev claiming to need fresh air. She'd pulled him along and he realizes now that she'd done it so he could stare at something that wasn't four concrete walls, so that he could talk to her like they used to. And she gives him this look like she's known for a long time, and it's all comfort and warmth and there's no disgust, like he thought there would be when he told people he was gay. And he's never mentioned it before, barely having the courage to do it in front of a mirror, trauma lapping at his feet like flames whenever he dared to even think those words. And here he is with one of his oldest and closest friends, and she's hugging him and on the verge of crying herself because she loves him. He wants to thank her. 

"I see you and Benjamin are getting along nicely," is what comes out instead, because he needs the attention off of him for a while. Bev shoves him a bit but she's smiling into her fist and Richie can't help but to smile because Ben might be the only fucker out there who could beat him in the pining department. He gently shoves her back and she tucks some hair behind her ear. 

"It's nice." Bev says through a smile, and Richie grins against her shoulder. "It's really nice, Rich." 

There's an unspoken exchange of words, then. She looks at him and clearly hopes that he'll get to experience the same thing, but they're all too scared to speak about it because they _still _haven't gotten word about Eddie and they're all on edge. Richie blinks back at her and pushes his glasses up his nose with the back of his hand, a silent _me too. _

Richie's hands start feeling fidgety again, and he presses them between his knees. 

That's when Mike comes outside in a rush, yelling over the small courtyard to the two of them. "Hey! They're letting us in to see him!" 

And Richie almost blacks out. 

* * *

Eddie comes to in flashes. 

At first, he can barely get his eyes open. There's a sharp ache at the centre of his body and the lights are too bright, and he can feel people cutting away at his shirt and putting a mask over his nose and mouth, and he's out again, just like that, as quickly as he was awake. The next time, he blinks and the lights are still too fucking bright, and his head feels woozy and he's suddenly hit with a memory, of the motherfucking clown and its claw-like leg stabbing him through the stomach. He remembers Richie's face, eyes wide and face spotted with his own blood, and he remembers it almost feeling like he was drowning — 

His monitors must start beeping, because suddenly a nurse is in his room, and there's a needle in his arm, and he's out again, comfortable darkness blurring around the edges of his vision until he's practically dead to the world. He wakes up again and he has no idea how long it's been, the morphine drip next to him a steady reminder of where he is. He thinks he hears voices, snippets of conversation, and when he blinks he's looking out to a red-pink sky and his lights are finally dimmed and he hears a familiar voice, _"—well, you'll have to have me forcibly removed, then, because there's no fucking way I'm leaving him—"_, and there's that damned insistent beep of his monitor that pulls him, once again, back to sleep. 

It's been a while now since he woke up, and this time he feels like it's for good, at least for the time being. There's stale coffee in the air and the smell of unwashed clothes and the muskiness of dried blood. Eddie groans a little as he opens his eyes and, surely enough, morning sunlight filters in through the slits in the blinds and he has to blink a few times before he can really clear his vision. He looks down and sees various tubes sticking out of his arm; there are bruises and cuts all over his skin and when he manages to lift his hand to his cheek he can feel a heavier duty bandage there, over the recognizable bump of fresh stitches in his skin. He can almost feel the sewed up hole in his stomach, and maybe it's a part of the glamour of this fucked up town that allowed his body to heal like it has. 

Eddie's neck is stiff, but when he glances to his right he's so taken aback by the sight of Richie that he almost forgets about it. The idiot trashmouth who never showed his true feelings until the moment it mattered the most, sitting in an awful crumpled t-shirt, his hair stringy and now matted to his forehead as he slumps forward against Eddie's bed from his chair, which he must have dragged as close as possible. Richie's arms are sprawled out in front of him, one hand curled lightly over Eddie's leg, anchoring him, while the other is folded so he could use it like a pillow. His glasses are leaving indents over his temples from sleeping in them. There's two empty coffee cups sitting on the small bedside table, along with a tattered copy of some generic waiting room magazine and a charging cellphone. 

"Eds." 

It's quiet, but Bev's voice is welcomed as she enters the room, holding the door open for Ben as he slips in after her, holding coffee and a bag stamped with a café's logo. Eddie notices the way they move around each other with a natural comfort, some sort of ease that's been there forever, and he glances once more and Richie before smiling at the two of them. 

Ben speaks up, once he's set down the coffees. "How're you feeling?" 

"Like I got stabbed by a demonic clown." Eddie supplies easily, but then he shrugs. "I'm glad to be here, if that makes sense?" 

"We are too, man," Ben says, and Bev nods, moving to sit on the end of his bed that Richie isn't currently drooling on. Eddie has the sudden urge to run his fingers through Richie's hair when the man's nose twitches a little in his sleep. If he could only reach without feeling phantom pains dragging through his whole body. 

"Mike and Bill should be back soon, they left a couple hours ago to get some rest." Bev explains, noticing the way he's been trying to discreetly look around for the rest of his friends, panicked for a moment that in his close-to-death state he forgot they died, or something. It settles the worry in his stomach. "They were here all night with him. Even though they told us it could be days before you woke up for good, Rich's stubborn ass hasn't left the building." 

She shakes her head fondly at him, and Eddie's heart is in his throat. He knows deep down that there's a reason he's always so fucking stressed out about how Richie smokes or drinks too much or generally puts himself in danger. He's always felt a magnetic pull toward Richie, ever since they were eight and meeting through Bill and Stan at school. Of course, back then there was that added layer of annoying bickering, the insults in teasing lilts of their voices that they threw at each other without blinking. But he remembers — he remembers Richie and him, alone in the clubhouse or in one of their backyards, opening up and whispering their secrets and dreams like if they spoke quietly enough, nobody else in the world could hear. And now, nothing has changed about the excited thrum of his heart when he's around his best friend, except Eddie has a wife who torments and makes him feel weak and Richie is here. He's always here. 

A nurse comes in, then, and the sudden screech of her cart's wheels squeaking into the room has Richie bolting upright. He frowns at the fact that he's still wearing his glasses and removes them to drag a hand down his face, and it takes the nurse talking with Eddie for Richie to clue in and realize that he's awake. 

"Morning, dipshit," Eddie grins, and Richie's mouth falls open. 

"Eds —" Richie's voice cracks with sleep, and the nurse gently moves past him, clicking through the various screens on the monitors and flashing a light in his eyes and he can feel Richie, latched onto his arm like a vice, eyes heavy as they settle on him. 

"If you folks wouldn't mind giving me just a few moments here, I have to do a private examination." The nurse speaks like she expects them to protest, and Richie actually manages to pick up on the tone of her voice and accept it for once. It doesn't stop him from waggling his eyebrows at Eddie like a stupid thirteen-year-old when he hears _private_ _examination_. But Eddie's always been able to see right through him and he sees him now, terrified with bags under his eyes and too-pale skin. Bev and Ben lead him outside, and Eddie almost wants them to stay away for a while, to maybe pump some sunlight and life back into Richie. He's suddenly thankful for the quiet moment between just him and the nurse, professional and bringing him back to a comfortable distance from his emotions as she talks to him about the surgeries — he winces at surgeries, plural, and vaguely wonders about infection before trying to shut his brain up — and she asks him about where he's sitting on the pain scale and she checks his temperature and blood pressure. 

She moves his hospital gown out of the way, cold gloved fingers brushing against his skin, and she changes his bandages and offers him a long sip of water through a straw, and then she's gone with the promise of being back in half an hour to give him another dose of meds. 

"Fucking finally." He hears Richie mutter as his friends stroll back into his room. Eddie feels drawn to him like a moth to the flame, turning toward him just so as Richie settles a knee against his bed, the mattress dipping a bit at the added weight, and he moves in close, taking Eddie's hand in his own, no concept of personal space whatsoever. It knocks Eddie back almost three decades, especially when he feels Richie's hand at the back of his neck, pressing their foreheads together. "You're awake."

"Thanks for noticing." Eddie says dryly, and Richie snorts. He finally opens his eyes and they linger too long on Eddie's, and then they dip down briefly to his mouth, and then they slip even further to where his hospital gown is still rucked down to his ribs so the nurse could have easier access to his wound, and the gauze is stark white against his ashen skin, and Eddie catches the exact moment that the corner of Richie's mouth quivers. "Hey —" 

"Jesus fuck, Eddie," is all that Richie can apparently get out, and he repeats it again and again, his voice getting quieter. And then he begins to cry. 

"Richie," Eddie whispers, hand reaching up to tangle in his curls. "_Hey, _I'm okay. Because of you guys I'm alive, okay? I'm not going anywhere." 

"I thought I lost you, I —" Richie's breath hitches and he's giving in to the sob erupting from his chest, his fingers curled tight in the thin fabric of the blanket around Eddie's legs. Richie drops forward further and Eddie finally is close enough to properly run his fingers through his hair, and he takes a breath before pressing a kiss to the top of his head. And Bev and Ben move quickly, offering comfort through their presence, a weird sort of group hug manifesting itself while Richie's rough cries echo through the otherwise quiet room. When they pull away Richie has a hand over his eyes, trying to block the others from being able to see through him, still too worried about the mask he wears, and Bev squeezes her arms tight around him from behind, pressing her mouth to his shoulder. 

"Listen, Eds," Richie starts, but before he can get very far Ben mumbles something about giving them some space, and the way that Eddie's hand is curled into Richie's is the only thing he can focus on. He runs his thumb over Richie's knuckles and he watches the look that crosses Richie's face, so earth-shatteringly sad and filled with longing and Eddie can't stand to look at him like this anymore. 

"Can I say something, Rich?" Eddie asks, and Richie just sniffs and meets Eddie's eyes. He smiles, just a little, and pinches the light-grey cotton between his fingers. "I think your fashion has finally evolved into something not terrible." 

"Fuck off," Richie grins, roughly wiping at his eyes. He looks down and the _I LOVE DERRY _in blocky red letters across his chest almost feels like a taunt. "You know I've always had taste." 

Eddie laughs, and it hurts a bit, but he doesn't care. 

"I really don't know what I would've done if I — if I lost you, Eds." Richie's shaking his head at his own words, throat bobbing. "I keep thinking about it, replaying it in my head like it's a fucking nightmare, like the clown's still got some fucking hold over me. And I can't let it happen, Eddie. Ever." 

"I know, Richie." Eddie says, because he _does. _Ever since the memories resurfaced, ever since he stumbled into the cavern and saw Richie, caught in those fucking deadlights, eyes somewhere else, maybe in another fucking universe, presumably lost to them all forever, he's known. He knew way back when they were stupid kids kicking at each other in a dusty, too-small hammock. 

Richie swallows, and rests his head in the hand not holding Eddie's, and blinks up at him. He sees the determination, the fear, the moment he decides to be brave lighting up his eyes. "You know, I think I've been in love with you since we were twelve years old. I was a fucking idiot back then, didn't know where to put all these pent up emotions and then there was a demon clown, which I'm sure you're aware of, but uh. Yeah. I thought I was going to lose you then and all of that came back and it fucking cracked me down to my core, man. Shit. I've been head-over-fucking-heels for you since forever, Eds." 

He looks at Eddie and it's so warm, so sincere. Myra is cold, she's everything he hates about himself rolled into the spitting image of his mother, and then there's Richie, loud and obnoxious but caring Richie, a damn hero, the boy he loved. The boy he loves. Richie sniffs again, and keeps talking, his voice hollowed out and wrecked, almost, from all of the crying. "You can totally punch me in the face if you want to." 

"You're an idiot," Eddie whispers, and Richie throws his hands up in the air, a mock surrender. There are still lines of worry around his eyes, but here he is, putting on the show. 

"You _wound _me, Eds, and after I fucking laid my heart out for the world to s—" 

Richie can't talk anymore, because Eddie is kissing him. He surprises himself sometimes and here he is, kissing Richie fucking Tozier, hands curled in his stupid shirt, his glasses bumping against Eddie's nose. It's awkward and too quick because Eddie can't really hold his breath for that long now, and Richie is still too stunned to really kiss back, but it feels monumental. Richie pulls back just enough and takes him in, a nervous flush over his cheeks, and Eddie really wants to kiss the pinkness away, but Richie's mouth is back on his in seconds and it's like he's hungry, his hands coming up to either side of Eddie's face, and they're slightly trembling but Eddie doesn't care because he's pretty sure he's shaking too.

"Who knew you were such a sap, huh?" Eddie mutters, mostly against Richie's mouth, as he tugs lightly on a curl that's fallen into Richie's eyes. 

Richie shrugs, and his eyes are shiny again. "I love you." 

It washes over him in waves. 

"Ha, I fucking love you," Richie says, and he's grinning now, too big for his stupid face, the euphoria of being able to say those words out loud finally hitting him. Richie kisses over his jaw and drops one onto the tip of his nose and over his cheeks, careful with his bandage, and he's making loud smacking noises with every press of his lips and he's suddenly and overwhelmingly himself again, obnoxious and adorable all rolled into one. 

"I change my mind." Eddie teases, looking up at the ceiling as Richie continues making his way down Eddie's throat, though he's laughing against his skin the whole time. "I retract that kiss." 

"Not allowed to," Richie grins, pulling back and cradling Eddie's face, trying to be careful with where he places his hands. "You love me." 

He draws out the _o_, and he's pushing his glasses up with a dorky smile, and Eddie rolls his own eyes before it hits him. 

"Oh man, I do," Eddie says with a little whine, and Richie gives him his softest smile yet. 

There's a knock at the door, and Richie sits back but he's still holding Eddie's hand as Mike pokes his head inside. And Eddie's heart soars because they're here and they're safe and he's glad that he took that damn claw to the stomach if this is his reward. 

"Done hogging him yet, Rich?" Bev asks with a knowing smile, and Richie easily flips her off but makes room on the bed anyway, and soon enough all of them are pushing inside, crowding as close as they can to Eddie. And they stay like that, touching in some way, until Eddie's eyes start to droop. 

* * *

A few weeks pass, and a lot happens. 

Eddie stays in the hospital for a week and three days, and it's exhausting and terrifying but Richie jumps at the chance to take him home — which is, of course, the townhouse — and he carefully listens to every instruction the nurses and doctors tell him. He refuses to be the reason why Eddie develops a blood clot, or some shit. Especially now that he and Eddie are the only two left in Derry, since Mike finally got in his car and started driving with nowhere to be late yesterday morning. He buys Eddie soup from the diner across town and they spend their nights in the little lounge, curled up on the couch with Richie re-adjusting the pillows every few minutes, playing dumb card games they find in the cupboards and watching bad movies on Netflix. 

He changes Eddie's bandages, which goes as well as he figures it will. (_"Ow, dumbass! You realize that's tape, right?" "Aw, Eds, want me to kiss it better? You know I don't mind."_) He paces his room when Eddie takes his fifteen million pills that he actually needs, and he calls the others to keep them posted while Eddie sleeps. He tries to bask in his sudden bout of bravery and he properly comes out to them all, Bev's smile all watery through their Skype call, and later he starts writing new material, his _own _material, and he feels fucking free.

And when Eddie starts to feel up to walking, Richie roams with him through town, eventually gathering the courage to show him the carving. Eddie hits him on the shoulder and calls him a dumb romantic but he kisses him hard enough to knock Richie back against the fence anyway, hands big and warm and anchoring when they drop down to Richie's waist. Eddie slowly gets better and better and Richie falls more in love, with every passing moment, and when Eddie calls to make an appointment with his lawyer, before calling Myra and speaking with her for an hour, he's there for him, fingers intertwined with his own, his mouth ghosting over Eddie's knuckles as he speaks, firm but soft. 

When Richie has nightmares that have him screaming awake, Eds is there for him, murmuring sweet nothings into his hair until he catches his breath and can fall back asleep. They haven't really made plans for after, which is a big looming presence over them, but he doesn't care because he has _this_, and he knows whatever happens they'll figure it out together. 

(_"I'm going to hold it over you forever, you know. That you said it first." _

_Richie rolls over, throwing his arm over Eddie's lower stomach, always careful with where he rests his weight because he doesn't want to cause a flare up of pain. When he blinks his eyes open, Eddie's staring at him with his wide eyes and a little smirk pulling at his lips. His gaze is fond, though, always is. _

_"What's that?" Richie asks, still a little foggy with sleep. But he feels warm, especially when Eddie flicks him gently on the forehead and ducks down to whisper it in his ear:_

_"I love you."_) 

**Author's Note:**

> a fluffy ending, i know, but they deserve it! 
> 
> thank you for reading!! comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!!


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